Quality assurance in the political context: in the midst of different expectations and conflicting goals

Abstract

Higher education quality assurance systems develop within a complex political environment where national level goals and priorities interact with European and global developments. Furthermore, quality assurance is influenced by broader processes in the public sector that set expectations with respect to accountability, legitimacy and regulatory quality. As a result, quality assurance systems often face different and even conflicting goals from different parts of society. The traditional goals of securing minimum standards and facilitating improvement within universities are augmented with such goals as providing information to the public, supporting inter-institutional competition and positioning institutions or higher education systems in the global competition. The relative priority of these goals is in a constant change over time. This paper aims to map the main tensions that emerge from the conflicting demands and discusses the extent to which impact evaluation can address some of the difficulties.

Stakeholders in Higher Education Quality Assurance: Richness in Diversity?

“…According to Hopbach (2014), the diversity of expectations is currently one of the key challenges that European quality assurance agencies face. A lack of agreement about the objectives of quality assurance can inhibit effective implementation of the system (Santiago, Tremblay, Basri, & Arnal, 2008) as well as reduce its societal legitimacy (Beerkens, 2015b). The 'better regulation' agenda (European Commission 2015), on the other hand, calls for more stakeholder engagement in order to achieve effective regulation and to build a common understanding among stakeholders.…”

Building Capacity for Quality Assurance in Global Higher Education

“…Accountability is necessary to measure quantitatively the investment of educational technology because education is about the utilization of and often consumption of human resources. In practical accountability measures, an output represents results (Beerkens, 2015).…”

The seven deadly sins of quality management: trade-offs and implications for further research

“…Uni1QM1, 38Research, teaching and learning are increasingly developing towards a logic of product or consumer orientation and are moving away from intellectual individualism and originality (Brady & Bates 2016;Alvesson & Sandberg 2013). Paradoxically, students' and societal demands require a diverse higher education system (Barr, 2004;Beerkens, 2015), yet diversity and variation may signify systematic hindrances with respect to the implementation of quality management. Modern management system theory advocates that measurement and comparability are essential for an efficient and effective quality management system, without considering that these ostensibly threatening forms of reductionism 'might destroy the university' (Ball & Wilkinson, 1994, p. 419) in practice.…”